


Most Important Rule

by elemenoh_p



Category: Rambling Wrecks
Genre: F/M, Fanfiction Twice Removed, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Miles Brown All The Things, References to Past Child Abuse, References to self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elemenoh_p/pseuds/elemenoh_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles doesn’t let himself think too much about Casey that way anymore. (Except for when he does.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Most Important Rule

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rambling Wrecks](https://archiveofourown.org/works/487588) by [patchfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire), [raving_liberal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal). 



> After 10+ years as a mostly-lurker in various fandoms, I have finally taken the plunge into fic authorship. It seemed appropriate to do that with two of the original characters I love the most, Miles and Casey from [patchfire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire/) and [raving_liberal](http://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal/)'s epic Glee AU. 
> 
> Thanks, Patch and Rav, for letting me play in your sandbox, even though I practically threw sand into poor Miles' eyes. And thanks for the AO3 invite and beta-ing help too. Y'all rock!
> 
> Feedback is heartily welcomed!

Once again, Miles has no one to blame but himself. The girl passed out next to him was actually a great fuck—a freshman from Kentucky, a cheerleader, very enthusiastic—but he knows he made a big mistake tonight. He broke one of his major rules, Thou Shalt Never Spend The Night. He should have snuck out of her dorm room and back to his apartment hours ago. But he’d had a few drinks, and it had been a long week. He let himself get lost in the satisfaction of good, athletic, tipsy sex, and the warmer and sleepier he got, the more Bryn’s auburn hair and freckles started to look familiar. And there it was, his most important rule broken, Thou Shalt Avoid Redheads If You Know What’s Good For You, Miles Brown.

Bryn-the-cheerleader is thin, like Casey, and small. Compact muscles beneath milky, freckled skin. There’s even something in the little snuffling noises she makes, burying her face in the pillow, that brings back a flood of memories. 

Miles doesn’t let himself think too much about Casey that way anymore. When they Skype, about once a week, Miles always calls him Cherry and tries not to remember the feel of Casey’s long hair tickling his face, or the hint of chlorine and coffee that lingered on his skin even after he showered, or the way he’d bite at Miles’ shoulder when he came. Miles keeps a grin plastered on and listens to Casey rattle on about his classes at Tech and the funny thing Danny said about Brittany’s cat. He smiles and tells Cherry to say “Hey” to Shep for him, and he doesn’t tell Casey how much he misses the taste of red candy in his kisses. 

He doesn’t tell Casey about his most important rule.

It goes without saying that he’ll never tell Casey about this, studying the freckles on Bryn’s back and shoulders in the pink light of a new day. Bryn is the only person Miles has ever seen with near as many freckles as Casey has. But Miles can see the differences between them easily; Casey has no idea how many times Miles watched him sleep in Miles’ bed back home in Lima. It’s better that way, with Casey not knowing. It’s how it has to be. 

He learned early on that Casey never enjoyed much in the way of peaceful sleep. For as many reasons as Casey had to be exhausted, between those early shifts at Starbucks and thousands of meters in the pool and fucking Miles until they were both sweaty and sore—he didn’t sleep well. 

One of the first times they slept together, really slept, was after a particularly great afternoon of trying new positions in a pot-induced haze. They’d both been languid and slow-moving and the sex seemed to last for hours. At one point Miles found himself bent over his desk with Casey pounding into him slow but firm; he had to keep biting his arm to keep from shouting. 

When they both finally came, on their sides in Miles’ bed, Casey had collapsed half on top of him with his eyelids drooping closed. The hair around his temples was damp and curling, and his face, neck and chest were flushed dark pink under his freckles. Miles was tuckered out himself but thought he could almost keep going, if it meant he got to chase that blush down to Casey’s belly. Instead he lazily rolled to his back and tucked Casey close against his side, admiring the contrast between his brown skin and Casey’s, pale but covered in dark freckles. They were both slick with sweat and Miles’ come was drying on his belly, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. 

Miles spent hours that way, looking at Casey during his post-fuck naps. Casey was always so relaxed at first, his face younger-looking in sleep and his limbs loose and akimbo. Against his better judgment, Miles found himself carding his hand gently through Casey’s mess of hair. He could touch Casey differently when he was asleep. He could be a little softer, a little more tender. He knew he wasn’t the only one who Casey had sex with, but he was the only one who got to see him in these sleepy moments, to look at him all relaxed and easy in a way he never was, awake. 

Miles was the only one who could study the web of scars underneath and through all those freckles. There were so many it was hard to know where one scar stopped and another began. As though the mess of welts and burns on Casey’s arm and hips weren’t bad enough—what Miles didn’t know of Casey’s story he would have come to guess, tracing thin white lines through the maze of freckles and moles. A long ugly gash at the heel of his palm. A few curved marks on his right side that put Miles in mind of a heavy boot. The countless, spidery scars on his face, around his eyes and on his cheekbones, some barely visible. Miles catalogued scars and burned, seethed with rage. He tried not to shake as he thought about all the scars no one could see, not him, not Coach, not even Shep. How did it happen that Miles got parents like his Ma and Pop, and someone smart and brave and funny like Casey got ones who had literally used him as a punching bag?

It usually didn’t take more than twenty minutes for that tiny crease to appear between Casey’s eyebrows. Miles would watch it happen, watch that tightness set into Casey’s face and body. He’d feel Casey curl slowly into a tight ball, until he had his knees tucked right up to his chest. He’d curl up smaller and smaller, like he was trying to disappear. Miles listened to Casey make those snuffling noises into his pillow. Sometimes he’d whimper in his sleep, even. Those days, Miles stroked his back and arms and hummed a little in the back of his throat until Casey relaxed a fraction. He always pretended in those moments not to hear when Casey murmured “David” under his breath. 

Pretending was easier. It was how it had to be.

 

Bryn shifts in her sleep and reaches out for Miles, her small hand coming to rest on his bare hip. Casey never did that. Sometimes he’d let Miles curl against his back, make Miles be a big spoon to his little ball of a self. But he never reached out for Miles, even in sleep. And somehow it’s that moment that decides things for him. 

Miles lifts Bryn’s hand off his hip and slides out of her extra-long twin bed. He fishes his boxers and jeans up off the floor and locates his hoodie hanging off the back of a desk chair. By the time he’s dressed the room is a fraction brighter in the dawning light. He takes a final moment to examine Bryn’s pale freckled skin, soft against her cheap green jersey sheets. He takes a final moment to remember Casey his favorite way, with clothes and stress and fear stripped away. 

As Miles checks his pocket for his wallet and keys and slips out Bryn’s door, he closes another door in his mind.

Casey isn’t his, and he wasn’t Miles’ senior year, either. He isn’t the one who gets to taste his red-flavored kisses or his chlorine-flavored skin. He isn’t the one who gets to stroke his hair or study the constellations of freckles on his shoulders and his nose. He isn’t the one who gets to rub his back to chase away the nightmares. 

Casey has to be Cherry to him from now on, his best friend whose benefits don’t include Miles’ favorite kind of benefits. Miles has to be okay with that. He has to close that door and stop torturing himself with freckly freshman cheerleaders, who look too much like what he can’t have. Besides, Miles thinks as he pushes out of Bryn’s dorm into the cool morning air, Miles Brown is nobody’s boyfriend. That’s not who he is. That’s not what he wants. That’s why he has the Rules. 

 

It’s the last time Miles breaks his most important rule. That’s how it has to be.


End file.
